Michael Swickard's new novel about New Mexico

Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk today issued decisions on four tribal gaming applications in California and New Mexico, determining that two of the proposed gaming sites meet the legal and regulatory requirements and two do not. “Our responsibility under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act is clear: we must review each application on a case by case basis and determine whether it meets the standards outlined in law and regulation,” said Echo Hawk. The Assistant Secretary issued a negative decision on other tribal gaming applications for the Pueblo of Jemez, in New Mexico. The Pueblo of Jemez is located northwest of Albuquerque, and was seeking to develop a class III gaming facility nearly 300 miles away in Doña Ana County, near the New Mexico-Texas border.﻿

Larry Echo Hawk

﻿Hawk said the department had "closely reviewed the proposal" from the Pueblo of Jemez and determined that it "does not meet the requirements under the law necessary for approval. With the Pueblo of Jemez, we had significant concerns about the Tribe’s ability to effectively exercise jurisdiction over a parcel nearly 300 miles from its existing reservation.” The Pueblo of Jemez was seeking to develop its gaming facility under the Secretarial Determination exception. The Department did not issue a determination on whether the proposed gaming facility would be in the best interest of the Tribe, and not detrimental to the surrounding community. Instead, the Department notified the Tribe that it would not acquire the land in trust because of concerns about the Tribe’s ability to effectively exercise jurisdiction on the proposed gaming site.

Jemez Off Reservation Casino Dealt a Major Blow by Interior Department Ruling

Daily Caller - The heated Congressional investigation into the botched Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives program Operation Fast and Furious reached a whole new level on Friday. New emails obtained by the Los Angeles Times appear to show senior Obama administration and White House officials were briefed on the gun-walking operation. The three White House officials implicated by the LA Times’ reporting are Kevin M. O’Reilly, the director of North American Affairs for the White House national security staff; Dan Restrepo, the president’s senior Latin American advisor; and Greg Gatjanis, a White House national security official. The emails were sent between July 2010 and February 2011, before the scandalous ATF program was exposed, according the LA Times.

Brian Terry

The LA Times says a senior administration official denies that the emails which lead Fast and Furious ATF agent Brian Newell sent to O’Reilly — who later briefed Restrepo and Gatjanis –included details on “investigative tactics” used in the program. By “investigative tactics,” the White House means how ATF agents facilitated the sale of firearms to drug cartels via “straw purchasers,” or people who could legally buy guns in the U.S. but did so with the intention of selling them to individuals who would traffic them to Mexico. Those emails apparently show Newell and O’Reilly discussing how the program was affecting Mexico. Another explosive new detail that emerged on Thursday was a set of documents showing senior officials in Phoenix attempting to cover up a connection between Fast and Furious weapons and U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry’s death.
Read full story here: News New Mexico

Townhall - The biggest star in the Obama firmament of green-jobs companies has just imploded. Solyndra, a California-based firm that produced solar panels, declared bankruptcy this week, putting more than a thousand additional workers on the unemployment line. The Solyndra story tells you all you need to know about President Obama's ability to "create" jobs -- green or otherwise. Solyndra was no ordinary startup. When the company broke ground on its plant, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and California's then-governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, used a golden shovel to dig the first hole. And it wasn't just the shovel that was gold-plated. The company received over half a billion dollars in federal loan guarantees for the project. But U.S. taxpayers will likely never see a dime repaid now that the company has gone into Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The loan guarantees were controversial from the outset. The chief investor in Solyndra was George Kaiser, a major Obama fundraiser. The guarantees were part of a $90 billion federal program, but Solyndra was first in line to receive the largesse. House Republicans have subpoenaed White House documents and are now investigating whether Solyndra received favorable treatment because of its political ties. There seems to be more than a whiff of old-fashioned corruption here, but only a thorough investigation will tell.
One thing is certain: The president and secretary of energy made repeated trips to Solyndra's Silicon Valley plant over the last couple of years, using the facility as a backdrop to deliver clean-energy agitprop. The president's most recent trip there occurred in May 2010, not long after a government audit questioned whether the company could even survive. Read full column here: News New Mexico

Inside the Capitol - SANTA FE -- Get ready for a slam-bang legislative session beginning tomorrow. Redistricting sessions are especially brutal. At least one political death always occurs. As usual, the Albuquerque metropolitan area is set to devour a few more legislative seats from the rest of the state. The size of New Mexico's legislature is set by law. So high growth in one region means seats will be lost in areas of slower growth. But isn't there a way that districts can be redrawn so that no legislator loses a seat? Yes, there is, but the Legislature's redistricting consultant, Brian Sanderoff, says the map would be good only for comic relief. Read full story here: News New Mexico

MSN - Employment growth ground to a halt in August, as sagging consumer confidence discouraged already skittish U.S. businesses from hiring, keeping pressure on the Federal Reserve to provide more monetary stimulus to aid the struggling economy. Nonfarm payrolls were unchanged last month, the Labor Department said Friday. It was the first time since 1945 that the government has reported a net monthly job change of zero. The August payrolls report was the worst since September 2010, while nonfarm employment for June and July was revised to show 58,000 fewer jobs. “The bottom line is this is bad,” Diane Swonk, chief economist with financial services firm Mesirow Financial, told CNBC Friday. Read full story here: News New Mexico